Us president George W Bush speaking Welsh on the evening news?
It's enough to make any viewer in Wales do a double take because
news bulletins, documentaries and other programmes on the Welsh channel
routinely include clips of people speaking English. The assumption is
that all S4C viewers understand English as well as Welsh. But now
campaign group Cylch yr Iaith says S4C should eradicate English by
dubbing "Dubya" and other prominent English-speaking figures
into Welsh.

However, such a policy would take S4C in the opposite direction to
that advocated by Heritage Minister Rhodri Glyn Thomas, who said this
week the channel should broadcast more English-language programmes about
Wales to improve its viewing figures.

Cylch yr Iaith has spent years campaigning against what it regards
as the creeping anglicisation of S4C and BBC Radio Cymru. It says
English speakers have plenty of choice of television programmes without
S4C diluting its Welsh-language provision to attract them.

As S4C celebrates its 25th anniversary, Cylch yr Iaith wants the
channel to rid its Welsh-language programmes of English.

Secretary Ieuan Wyn said the Welsh-speaking community needed
opportunities to be more involved in S4C, with social and cultural
groups represented on a permanent advisory panel giving the S4C
Authority feedback and helping make policies.

He said, "Amongst the issues would be changing the present
guidelines of using English-language items, such as interviews in news
bulletins and current affairs programmes, and using dubbing
instead."

Western Mail film reviewer Gary Slaymaker, who also presents a film
programme on S4C, said the channel had previously dubbed clips of sports
stars in programmes on soccer and rallying.

"They were speaking in their native language, Finnish or
Italian. But if you know someone is speaking English and it's
dubbed into Welsh, it sounds odd. You wouldn't get Gordon
Brown's Scottish brogue if he was voiced by someone from
Bangor."

But he raised the issue that some children might grow up thinking
Gordon Brown was a fluent Welsh speaker. "It would be a big shock
if they met the PM and started speaking Welsh with him."

In Germany most films and TV programmes are dubbed into German but
news bulletins are treated differently, according to Daniel
Meyer-Dinkgrafe, a German academic who lectured on film and drama at the
University of Wales, Aberystwyth, from 1994 until last month.

He said, "In the news bulletins the original sound starts off
and then goes low so that you can still hear it in the background. A
newsreader's kind of voice is then saying the text in German.
It's not an actor's voice."

He said it would look and sound strange if someone like George Bush
appeared to be speaking in German on the news.

If Welsh dubbing on news bulletins proved popular, could S4C air
Hollywood blockbusters in Welsh?

"It's been tried before," said Mr Slaymaker.
"In the 1970s HTV took some of the classics of film and dubbed them
in Welsh.

"They did the 1950s western Shane, with Huw Ceredig voicing
the part played by Jack Palance. One of the Welsh actors, Robin
Gruffydd, voicing Shane, had a slightly effeminate voice. "They
also did Rhaid Dinistrio Frankenstein, originally Frankenstein Must be
Destroyed. "Everyone thought these films were hilarious.":
Dubbing confusion:In Germany today dubbing provides well-paid careers
for actors whose voices are famous while their faces remain unknown to
the public.

Actors at the professions peak can pick up lucrative advertising
contracts for voiceovers. The downside is confusion when an actors
familiar voice suddenly changes, because their Synchronsprecher the
person doing the voiceover has retired, died or been allocated a
different actor in the same film. Germans had to get used to a new voice
for Sean Connery, after the death in 1997 of Gert Gunther Hoffmann who
had been Sean Connerys Synchronsprecher for decades.

Daniel Meyer-Dinkgrafe, professor of drama at the University of
Lincoln, said Hoffman was unusual among dubbers in having acted on
German TV, in an early-evening crime series. He said another dubber,
Michael Chevalier had played just a handful of parts in a 50-year career
in which he was famed as the voice of Charles Bronson, Omar Sharif and
Richard Harris.

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